Baptism of Fire is the third novel in the Witcher Saga written by Polishfantasy writerAndrzej Sapkowski, first published in 1996 in Polish and in English in 2014. It is a sequel to the second Witcher novel Time of Contempt and is followed by The Tower of the Swallow.
Plot
Geralt recovers in Brokilon forest after the Thanedd incident, but he is intent on leaving as quickly as possible and continuing on his path to find Ciri. During his recovery, Geralt meets Milva, a hunter and expert archer. Her mastery of the bow is unequalled. Despite not particularly liking the convalescing witcher, she decides to follow Geralt, who is accompanied by Dandelion, on his way towards Nilfgaard and hopefully, Ciri. The journey is not easy, the war is encroaching seemingly from all directions and nearly every city is ablaze. Along their journey they meet a group of dwarves led by one Zoltan Chivay. As it seems they are all going in the same direction, Geralt's party joins the group who are also shepherding some refugee women and children. At several points in their journey, Geralt and his companions come across Cahir, the erstwhile "Black Rider" that plagued Ciri's dreams. Initially, the knight is being transported as a prisoner by some hawkers, when Geralt spares his life for the second time. However, the witcher wants nothing to do with the young Nilfgaardian and leaves him to his own devices, Cahir is ever persistent and continues to shadow the witcher and his entourage. Eventually, through Milva's intervention, the young knight comes to join the group. Finally, the troupe is joined by Regis, a vampire, some might say "monster", who rather surprisingly becomes the monster hunter's good friend. Regis proves invaluable for his medical skills. As the group travels east, they are inevitably caught between the warring factions which leads them into the thick of the Battle for the Bridge on the Yaruga where the group is pivotal in queen Meve's victory. Geralt had previously named himself "Geralt of Rivia" for credibility sake, however, it is shortly after this battle that Geralt is coincidentally knighted by the queen and officially becomes "Geralt of Rivia". Meanwhile, Ciri has settled into life with a party of young rebels who call themselves the Rats and has become known as "Falka". With the Rats, she experiences killing on quite a regular basis, but also forms a strong bond with Mistle. Killing ultimately becomes an obsession for the former princess. Another background story revolves around the formation of the Lodge of Sorceresses. It turns out that Francesca Findabair managed to capture and compress Yennefer into a jade figurine following the events at Thanedd Island. It appears that the Lodge is very keen on using Ciri to their advantage in controlling the politics and prioritizing magic, which leads them to indirectly force Yennefer into joining their group. One Nilfgaardian sorceress, Fringilla Vigo, manages to help Yennefer escape from one of the Lodge meetings to rescue Ciri.
Translations
It was published in Croatian, Czech, Russian, Spanish, Lithuanian, German, French, Serbian, Finnish, Hungarian and Portuguese Ukrainian. The English edition was released by Gollancz on March 6, 2014.
Adaptations
In 2018 a Polish audiobook has been released. It is a high-end audiobook, with dozens of actors, music and special effects.
